And Now for Some Republican News Not Involving Memos or Trump

This almost went into our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states, but the current state of Republican candidates in Missouri is so flatly bizarre that it deserves a post all its own. The state is replete with rising young GOP conservative stars. Unfortunately, they all seem to have a gene for getting into weird trouble, usually involving sex.

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For example, there’s Eric Greitens, the current governor. Shortly after New Year’s, it was reported not only that Greitens had had an extramarital affair, but also that he had attempted to blackmail the woman involved. (Greitens has copped to the former, but denied the latter.) Ever since, Missouri Republicans, inside government and out, have been wandering around acting like they’ve all been hit on the head with a rock. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Five GOP lawmakers publicly called on Greitens to step aside or said the governor should consider doing so. Their statements came Tuesday, the first workday after the holiday weekend. Other Republicans said it was too early to call for his resignation or expressed hope that the distraction would not derail the party’s legislative agenda. House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, stayed silent on Tuesday as he entered and exited a GOP caucus meeting, declining to take questions from reporters. “The speaker has told us that everybody has to do what they think the right thing to do is,” said Rep. Kathie Conway, the term-limited St. Charles Republican who said Greitens should “consider” resigning. “The speaker would never ask us to toe a line, and I don’t even know what his opinion is.”

So far, Greitens has been hanging in there, even as his situation seems to be worsening. (The ex-husband of the woman involved says he has more tapes and that he’s handed them over not only to local prosecutors, but also to the FBI, which is never a good thing.) But whatever national ambitions he had are probably dust, at least for the moment.

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And then there’s Josh Hawley, the young, Yale-educated state attorney general. Hawley is widely considered to be the strongest candidate to run against the state’s perpetually imperiled Democratic U.S. senator, Claire McCaskill. Last December, Hawley spoke to a gathering of Christian pastors and unlimbered himself of some, ah, unique views regarding the crime of sexual trafficking. From the Kansas City Star:

“We have a human trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities. There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined,” Hawley told the crowd in audio obtained this week by The Star. “We must ... deliver a message to our culture that the false gospel of ‘anything goes’ ends in this road of slavery. It ends in the slavery and the exploitation of the most vulnerable among us. It ends in the slavery and exploitation of young women.”

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Those of us who lived through the 1960s are eternally amazed at what young conservatives have been taught about that volatile decade, but this is truly amazing. First of all, I haven’t heard the phrase “the sexual revolution” in about 20 years. McCaskill slapped back deftly.

“I didn’t go to one of those fancy private schools, but the history I learned in public schools & Mizzou taught me that the evidence of trafficking of women for sex goes back to before 2000 BC. It didn’t begin with women’s rights and the birth control pill,” McCaskill said in a tweet.

Back six years ago, the last time Claire McCaskill was on the bubble as far as re-election, the GOP electorate split in a three-way primary and out popped Todd Akin, who soon became synonymous with the phrase “legitimate rape.” Now, right at the start, a promising Republican state officeholder, with infinitely more credentials as a candidate than Akin ever had, ventures into the world of sexual politics and steps on an entirely different rake. Whatever dark magic Claire McCaskill is practicing, she could get rich selling the secret to other candidates.

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